A Death Divided

by Clare Francis

  A last moment of hesitation and he made up his mind: it was time to come clean. He pulled out and, drawing level, ducked his head, the better to show his face, and began to wave. But the falling snow was thick, the light gloomy, and after giving the briefest of glances in his direction, enough to register the fact that he was passing, the woman’s head continued to turn until she was looking back over her shoulder.

  The woman: in the eerie half light the face, blurred, indistinct, seemed to belong to a stranger.

  Pulling up, he looked in the mirror and saw the Volvo swinging across the road in a tight arc. Hastily, he stuck his head out of the window and watched it make not a complete U-turn but just short of it, taking a narrow lane that Joe had missed among the trees.

  By the time he’d turned round the Volvo’s tail lights had disappeared, but the tyre tracks lay in the snow like long interweaving ribbons. The beginning of the lane was steep, he felt the wheels spin, he only just made it to the brow. The road wasn’t too steep after that but it was single track and for all he knew sheet ice on the bends, so he took it slowly. It meandered upwards for half a mile or so before levelling off, when he found himself in a valley with gently sloping sides of snow-filled fields and dark hedgerows, the fields so small and the hedgerows so magnificent and so numerous - row after row of mature craggy-limbed trees, dense walls of shrubs and saplings - that the valley might have been a glorious parkland, one of Capability Brown’s most accomplished efforts, an Arcadia painted in black and white.

  There was a fast-running stream that snaked beside the road and a series of small bridges, stone or wood, and then, as the valley narrowed and began to rise, the fields fell away and there was just a woodland of naked oaks bathed in white. He had noticed one cottage further back, now he saw another, but still the tracer ribbons of the tyre tracks wound on.

  A last bend, a last rise, and the ribbons wove to the left onto a track that led upwards through dark enclosed woods.

  The track was rough and potholed, the trees dense. But then the trees began to open out, the sky to grow a little lighter, and he entered a clearing.

  Ahead, on a rise, was a cottage with the Volvo parked alongside.

  He stopped in the clearing and climbed out into a profound and unearthly silence accentuated by the hush of the whirling snow and the muffled rush of water, near or far he couldn’t tell. He began to walk, and the faint squeak of his footsteps was quickly swallowed up by the silence.

  The cottage was squat and dark-stoned. There was a window on either side of the door and two narrow dormers in the roof; the glass was as dark as the stonework, reflecting nothing. Snow had settled on the roof and there was no smoke coming from either chimney; as Joe approached he had the sense of a place abandoned. Footprints led from the Volvo to the door however, and someone had walked around to the side of the cottage, though from the covering of snow this might have happened earlier.

  He knocked, and the sound seemed to be sucked up by the snow. He knocked twice more before he moved selfconsciously to the right-hand window and, peering in, saw a room with old-fashioned floral wallpaper tinted resin by age or smoke, a Baxi fireplace, fire unlit, surrounded by chipped amber tiles and topped by a black mantelshelf, two tall-backed easy-chairs covered in threadbare coffee-coloured velvet, and various side tables and rugs that might have been scavenged from a car boot sale. After knocking on the door again, he moved to the left window and saw a room with faded white walls, a fireplace that had been boarded over, and a floor almost entirely covered in packing cases and cardboard boxes.

  Following the faint footprints around the side of the cottage, he passed an outhouse with an open door and saw a freezer, fairly new, which was humming gently and showing a green light. At the back, he came to a small yard with outhouses on two sides and would have turned away but for a shuffling sound which took him to a stable door with a grille over the top half, where a bright equine eye met his gaze. It was a shaggy pony, which snorted a little and came closer, nose outstretched, nostrils twitching curiously.

  A lean-to ran the full width of the back of the cottage, with a frosted glass window at one end and a door with four panes of glass, opaque with dirt, at the other. Joe put his nose to one of the panes and saw gloom. The door was unlocked though, and pushing it open he stepped into a ramshackle kitchen with an ancient stone sink, a wooden draining board, sagging shelves and the rank smell of damp. Water had stained the side wall and mildew speckled the ceiling, and the areas of lino that hadn’t rotted through to the concrete were scored and crumbling.

  The air was freezing, with the added bite of the damp.

  Standing there, Joe felt a wave of fury. No one could be expected to live like this. No one could live like this and be happy. Then, in a parallel thought which brought a different sort of anger: these conditions might be designed to break a person’s spirit.

  He wandered through into a tiny hall and, standing at the bottom of the staircase, called out, but there was no reply.

  Retracing his steps, he went round to the front of the cottage again and listened, but all he heard was the breathless hush of the snow as it wafted against his face, spiralled away, and fell with infinitesimal softness to the ground. The flakes were larger or falling more heavily; .when he looked across the clearing he could barely make out the dark cleave of a brook running through the trees. The valley rose gently towards, he supposed, open moorland, while behind the cottage the valley side was steep and thickly wooded, carpeted with bracken and rock supporting fragile cornices of snow.

  He went to the Volvo and examined the footprints again.

  They were getting faint now, but there was no doubt they pointed towards the cottage. Beginning to despair, he looked up the valley once more and saw what might have been a path leading away through the trees. He made directly for it, plunging down into a dip and up the other side, his soles slipping on the steep slope. It was a path all right; looking back, he realised it snaked around from the outhouses, hugging the contour of the hill, then - heart lifting again - he saw that there were footprints on it, like the ones next to the Volvo. A few yards further on, he came across more prints - dog paws, medium-sized - and almost laughed.

  The path rose gently through the woods. He walked as fast as his shoes, the tree roots and the icy patches would allow.

  Now and again he spotted the tracks of the dog leaving the path or returning to it, zigzagging this way and that. He felt the cold pinching his nose and ears. The trees became sparser and, whether from this or a sudden worsening of the weather, he became aware of a blurring of the light and a sharpening of the wind as the snow drove in closer around him. He wasn’t sure how far he could see, probably less than ten yards. In one blast of wind the path ahead seemed to vanish altogether and he paused to get his bearings. He carried on cautiously, eyes down, alert to the feel of the ground under his feet. When he glanced up, it was to see shadows that were trees and trees that were shadows, shifting and fading in the circling snow.

  The wind eased suddenly, the snow as well, and looking up he saw her standing directly in front of him. Even then he doubted his eyes, and it wasn’t till a black labrador rushed down the path and bounded up to him that he finally stepped forward and called her name.

  She didn’t move at first. Then she put a hand to her mouth and let out a long gasp of disbelief.

  As he stopped in front of her, she stared at him as if he were a ghost, before reaching out and putting her fingers to his hand as if to confirm he was flesh and blood. ‘Joe? For goodness’ sake.’ She gave a choked cry of excitement. ‘How on earth!’

  The next moment she had looped her arms gravely around his neck and pressed her head to his neck. He would have hugged her back but his arms got tangled up in her rucksack.

  Pulling away again, she stared intently into his eyes. ‘Joe, for God’s sake.’ And then she was stepping backwards, looking past him. ‘Did you come with Jamie? Is he with you?’

  ‘I’m alone. Completely alone.
I followed you from town.

  No excuses, Jen. I saw you in town and I’m afraid I followed you back.’

  She laughed oddly. ‘I never saw you.’

  ‘The snow. I followed the tracks.’

  ‘Like a paper trail!’ She gave the strange laugh again, like a shuddering gasp.

  He wished he’d planned what to say. ‘How are you, Jenna?

  Are you okay?’

  Her gaze strayed over his shoulder again. ‘Just you, Joe?

  No one else?’

  Was she hoping for her father or mother? Or scared of someone else he might have brought?

  ‘Just me,’ he said in a reassuring voice. ‘No one knows I’m here.’

  ‘Oh, Joe …’ She came closer again. Her hat was pulled half way down her forehead, her scarf up to her chin. In the eerie light, her skin was bleached of all colour, a pale mask in which her eyes seemed to float softly. The snow fell between them like an impenetrable layer of gauze, and she seemed both close and a long way away.

  ‘But what are you doing here, Joe?’ she asked. ‘Why did you come?’

  ‘I came to see you, of course.’ And now it was Joe who reached out and touched her arm.

  ‘You came all this way? To see me?’ From the way she spoke, it might have been Siberia. She smiled through glistening eyes. ‘Only you, Joe. Only you.’

  He felt his throat tighten, he blinked uncertainly. ‘But everyone’s been desperate to find you, Jenna. The whole family.

  Your dad, your mum - they’ve been so worried.’

  She dropped her head a little, she couldn’t or wouldn’t speak.

  ‘They want to know if you’re all right.’

  ‘I’m all right,’ she murmured, her voice almost lost in the whispering snow.

  ‘Can I tell them that?’

  She gave a troubled nod.

  ‘What else can I tell them, Jenna?

  ‘Nothing, Joe.’

  ‘No message?’

  Her eyes came up to his. ‘Sometimes it’s best to leave the past behind.’

  ‘What, including the people who love you?’

  ‘It’s hard - to give things up,’ she said with difficulty. ‘But sometimes - to find peace - to find a way of living - a reasonable life - sometimes there’s no other way - to find peace.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said with a slow nod. ‘But to cut yourself off from everything and everyone - so hard, Jenna. So hard on everyone.’

  Her eyes were a little wild now, her voice too. ‘I have to make my own journey, Joe. I have to make it as best I can.’

  ‘Your father would give anything to see you. Anything in the world.’

  He had meant to push her, and he was succeeding. Her lip trembled, she bowed her head.

  ‘How is he?’

  Joe could see no point in holding back. He told her about Alan’s workload, his heart problems, the worry that wore at him constantly, and she flinched a little, she screwed up her eyes, and when she opened them again they were glittering with tears.

  ‘So why not speak to him, Jenna? What possibly harm could it do?’

  Pulling off a glove, she dug a handkerchief out of her pocket and wiped her eyes with punishing strokes. Seeing this, Joe felt a rush of tenderness. He might have retreated then, he almost did, but something made him press on: his love for Alan; an obscure exasperation.

  ‘A call every now and then? A letter?’

  She shot him a pained glance, she made a gesture of hopelessness. ‘But I’d only talk, you see.’

  He didn’t get it. ‘So?’

  She blew her nose hard. ‘I’m not allowed to talk.’

  ‘Says who?’

  ‘I mustn’t talk,’ she repeated like a mantra.

  ‘Says Chetwood?’ he scoffed. ‘For God’s sake, Jenna.’

  ‘That’s what I promised - not to talk.’ She spoke like a child who must keep reciting the words to bolster her resolve.

  ‘Look,’ he said almost roughly, ‘is this to do with the death of your friend? Because if it is, nobody has to talk about it.

  Nobody has to even mention it.’

  ‘Oh, but J would have to talk about it!’ , ‘Jenna …’ He stood in front of her, he gripped her upper arms and felt how thin they were under the layers of clothing.

  He waited for her restless eyes to come up to his before saying, ‘Chetwood told me all about your friend. I’m deeply sorry. It must have been a shock. Awful. But it’s no reason to keep away from your mum and dad. They love you. They want to know you’re all right.’

  ‘But I’d have to tell them!’

  And then Chetwood’s words came back to him. She needs to talk… and people don’t always understand. ‘Okay …’ he said soothingly. ‘Okay. But your parents would understand.

  Of all people. They wouldn’t blame you. Not in a million years.’

  She gave him a baffled look, as though they had been talking at cross-purposes. ‘But of course they’d blame me.’

  Joe had finally got there. He dropped his hands. ‘Right.’

  ‘I did a terrible thing.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘I couldn’t hide it from them. I couldn’t - not tell them.’

  ‘But it was an accident, right?’

  ‘Is that what Jamie told you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  Hearing the sudden rise in her voice, Joe went cautiously.

  ‘That he fell? Into a river?’

  She shook her head in despair.

  Her face had grown blotchy from the cold and the tears, her nose was red. He could see faint lines fanning out from the corners of her eyes and tiny frown-marks between her eyebrows.

  But it was the same face for all that, a lovely face written over by time and unhappiness. As he looked at her, a snowflake settled on her eyelashes and she made no effort to blink it away. In that instant it seemed to him that she was gripped by a weariness so deep she would never recover from it.

  ‘We killed him, Joe. That’s what he doesn’t want me to say. We both killed him.’

  . Her breath had emerged in a plume of vapour, and he watched as the wind sucked it away. He heard a soft whistling in the treetops as a gust approached and saw the falling snow change direction and spiral upwards. He tried to juggle two thoughts, one that didn’t bear thinking about, the other that had him grasping at Chetwood’s words. She blames herself.

  The whole thing’s crazy, okay, Joe? There’s no reason. No reason for any of it.

  He chose a natural tone to say, ‘You don’t have to tell me any of this—’

  ‘But I do.’ And now her eyes were luminous and fervent.

  ‘That’s the whole point. I’ll never be able to achieve grace, I know that. But I must be allowed my guilt, Joe. I must be allowed remorse. I must be allowed to carry the burden of mortal sin. To acknowledge that I .took someone’s life, a life that was sacred and innocent and loving. I won’t be denied that, Joe. I’m not like Jamie, you see - I can’t pretend.’

  They stood in the falling snow and it seemed to Joe that the space between them contained an unbearable heat.

  ‘You understand, Joe?’

  He nodded rapidly. ‘Yes. I think I do.’

  The dog had returned from a hunting expedition and was circling round them. The sight of him seemed to engender alarm in Jenna. ‘You must go now. Jamie mustn’t find you here.’

  ‘I don’t give a damn if he finds me here!’

  ‘Please, Joe.’ She took a step towards the cottage. ‘For me.

  Please.’

  He gave a sigh of capitulation.

  As they started off, she seemed to stumble and he reached out for her hand. She would have pulled it away, but thinking better of it, she let him tuck her arm into his and cover her hand with his.

  ‘Joe…’ She murmured with a kind of puzzlement. ‘All this way…’

  ‘What shall I tell them when I get back, Jenna? What shall I tell your dad?’

  ‘Tell him�
� I’ll write.’ She said it once more as if to convince herself: ‘I’ll write.’

  Reaching the denser woodland, the wind subsided a little and he was aware of the silence again and the faint squeak of their steps on the snow.

  ‘Marc told me he spoke to you on Monday.’

  She was bemused. ‘No … No, I haven’t talked to him in ages.’

  ‘How long ago? Can you remember?’

  ‘I don’t know. A year? No - more like two.’

  Joe allowed himself a grim satisfaction at having caught Marc out in the lie.

  ‘I wanted to speak to Dad,’ Jenna continued in a tense reminiscent tone. ‘It was his birthday. It took me weeks to decide what to say, to summon the courage - and after all that he wasn’t there. I got Marc.’

  ‘What did you say to Marc?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t remember. Nothing much.’

  ‘Could you have said anything to make him think you were - well, frightened? That you were feeling threatened?’

  Jenna jerked to a stop, she stared at him with a kind of horror. The next moment she seemed utterly confused, she opened her mouth to speak and nothing came out. Finally she gasped, ‘What sort of a threat? What do you mean?’

  ‘He said you seemed to be living in fear - I think that was how he put it.’

  ‘But I never—’ She shook her head as if to bring herself to her senses.

  ‘He said you rang off because you were frightened of what might happen to you if you stayed on the line.’

  ‘Oh - maybe,’ she said vaguely. ‘Yes … maybe.’ Then: ‘For a moment I thought…’ But she never managed to articulate what it was she had thought.

  ‘So, he got it wrong?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I rather thought so.’

  He drew her arm back into his and they walked again, Jenna distractedly.

  ‘On the subject of Marc, he wants to sell the house you were left by the old lady - Edith Gutteridge, wasn’t it? There’s an offer. He wants to know if you’ll agree.’

  She was still dazed. ‘If that’s what he wants.’

  ‘He needs the money to study. He wants to train as a teacher.’